The place was really nice, and we enjoyed the spa in a way that 10-year-olds might: we put bubble bath in it and turned the jets on. There are photos, but even though I am submerged in bubbles up to my head, with a big bubble-bath afro, and am in general entirely G-rated in said photos, I am still nude under all that so I don't think I'll be posting it.

Canoeing was nice. We picked Mother Nature's wrath of a day to do it, of course - hot, cloudless, you get the idea - but it was fun nonetheless, once we got a rhythm happening. (Daniel was renamed "rudder boy" as it was his duty to stick his paddle into the water behind the canoe and act as a rudder when we wanted to make sharp turns - only half the time he accidentally turned us the wrong way so I would have to reach out and grab the overhanging branch that we'd been attempting to avoid.)

Also, it was on that day that I learnt that I still tan - as long as I don't apply sunscreen, and then spend a couple of hours exposed to raw Australian ozone-free UV goodness. Ironically, I learnt this because I was wearing long pants. Long pants have lessons for us all! You see, I didn't apply sunscreen to my legs as I saw no point in the exercise. I didn't take into account the fact that my pants might, say, ride up a teensy bit, exposing a raunchy bit of ankle as I paddled.

So I discovered a red triangle on my ankle that evening and almost cheered.

I vowed that this would be a summer that I would actually take advantage of my home near the beach, and actually get a tan. The last two weekends I have made a real effort to go be at the beach, out in the sun; and because my legs are so white that you'd get snow blindness if you looked at them on a bright day, I aimed to get them sunburnt. My skin doesn't seem to register sun, so aiming for sunburn is the only way I've got a chance of getting even a *hint* of colour. Aim for the stars, hit a street lamp - you get the idea.

Which brings me to my real point: there have been deep things and meaningful things going on, but my biggest concern at this present moment is that I bought a new dress to wear to Christine and Matt's engagement party, which is in two weeks. I tried it on this evening when nobody was around (Daniel was at the cricket with his mate Ben, who had a couple of free tickets he got from work), with the accessories and all*, and probably for a full half hour the depth of my thoughts was as follows:

1) Holy crap. I have a tan. Except on my face for some reason but that's OK.
2) I'm wearing a dress! Along with having a tan, I haven't experienced this in years!
3) Dude. I look totally hot. Now how should I wear my hair?

* I'm not a huge accessories person, but I do have about four pairs of earrings, so one pair usually matches pretty well with whatever it is I'm trying to spice up.

I am almost ashamed to admit it, but that really was all I could think of for ages. I just stared at myself in the mirror in this dress, with my brown feet and reddish brown legs and the white stripes on my shoulders where my bikini had sat, and thought those thoughts.

It was really liberating to wear a dress again, odd as that is. I've had these little scars on my legs since I was 19 years old, from some hair removal product I tried to use at the time, and my skin subsequently reacted to it. I have spots on my legs and I am insanely self-conscious about it even though nobody else seems to notice them. I am doing my best to get over it, and the tan does do a pretty good job at disguising my perceived imperfections. Hence, I stood there and stared at myself in the mirror, wearing a dress and feeling good about it.

I suppose it's nice to be really vain now and then. I don't care what any feminist says - looking good now and then is fantastic for the self-esteem.

Oh, postscript - back to my day at the beach for just a moment, I found a starfish today. It was dead, so I picked it up and put it next to my bag. I had no intention of taking it home, but I have this weird habit of collecting pretty shells and interesting things while I am at the beach and then leaving them somewhere for the tide to reclaim later. However, there were lots of kids around so I thought it might be nice for a little kid to find a starfish. One guy with an American accent was there with his little toddler daughter and her friend (cousin, maybe?), who were both squatting around shallow rockpools nearby and poking at not much. I picked up my starfish and, as I walked past, silently dropped it into one of the shallow pools, hoping that at least the dad had noticed. I don't think he did, but I know he found the starfish in the end because a little while later I overheard him say to the little girls, "hey, look! It's a starfish! And it's alive too - why don't you go and play with it?" (This to me was the dead giveaway that he knew for certain that it was really dead.)